Kelly Keegs Might Be the Real "Mean Girl" at Barstool
Published Sept. 13 2023, 3:31 p.m. ET
News broke that the unthinkable finally happened—the Mean Girl podcast is done. Barstool owner Dave Portnoy first shared the news on Barstool Radio on Sept. 12 in light of drama caused by co-hosts Alex Bennett and Jordyn Woodruff. Now that many Stoolies have gotten their wish, we’ve been reminded of the beef between Kelly Keegs and the “Mean Girls.”
Keegs took credit for “taking down the Mean Girls,” but what did she actually do? There were a lot of factors that led to the end of Mean Girl, but Kelly Keegs and her drama with the Mean Girls could have easily been one of them.
Kelly Keegs started drama with the ‘Mean Girl’ hosts after she wrote a blog post criticizing them.
The drama between Keegs and the Mean Girls began back in March 2023. Keegs wrote a blog post on Barstool with the title, “I Officially Hate The Mean Girls,” which got A LOT of traction. “Far be it from me to perpetuate the timeless trope of ‘women hate women,’ but sometimes you have to take one for the team, for the greater good,” she wrote.
She went on to explain that she’s writing the post as a way to say what everything’s thinking to their face instead of behind their backs. Plus, she said she does “like them both as people” and that Mean Girl was “a good show.” But her issue with it was that “both of these women are smarter, better, more eloquent than this constant stupidity mongering while sullying the always delicate perception of the Females at Barstool Sports.”
Because the perception of women at Barstool affects Keegs, it’s possible that she may have just wanted Alex and Jordyn to *do better.* “No longer will we pretend that these two are masterminds of the craft, brainstorming absurd shit to say for clicks,” Keegs wrote. “This is who they are. I pray these two feel just a shred of embarrassment after this blog, as was its intention.”
Alex and Jordyn barely responded to Keegs’s post and became less involved at Barstool.
Although Alex had been with Barstool for a couple years, she and Jordyn only went into the office once a week by the time they were recording Mean Girl. Apparently, this led several Barstool employees to talk about them on Barstool Radio and in the office. By the time Barstool went through layoffs, people were loudly hoping that Alex and Jordyn would be part of that.
On Sept. 12, Dave announced that he would be dropping Mean Girl from Barstool, although there seems to be no bad blood between the Mean Girls and Dave. Both Alex and Jordyn shared how grateful they are for their time there, and Dave even revealed that they weren’t fired; he simply just didn’t renew their contracts.
During the initial drama, Alex and Jordyn defended themselves and “played victim” according to Stoolies. But their podcast listenership also dropped off, according to Dave. KFC and Dave both joked that it’s Keegs’s fault that Mean Girl ended and Keegs owned up to that! But it’s also probably not the full truth.
Sure, she may have contributed to Mean Girl’s downfall, but perhaps Alex and Jordyn lost steam. From Dave’s perspective, they seemed ready to leave Barstool whether Keegs was involved or not.